Chapter Thirteen
Night had completely fallen by the time Annie and Jamison left the Hansen home. Rain was falling not in a downpour but in a slow steady drizzle, determined drops that slowly soaked the ground in the darkness. They pattered on the trees and made little bogs in the places in Patterson where the roads were still dirt. Most of the roads were paved or at least graveled but some were still dirt and susceptible to the rains persistent hammer. The rain echoed hollowly on the trailers in the trailer park on the north side of town. It pinged noisily off the houses that had tin roofs. It fell quietly and respectfully on the gravestones in the graveyard, soaking the flowers left there by people paying respect to their loved ones that had gone on ahead of them. The raindrops fell onto the placid surface of the lake and seemingly disappeared but each individual drop added itself to the lakes bulk. They made tiny rippling marks as they hit the surface of the water and then disappeared into the darkness. Standing on the porch with their arms around each other’s waists listening to the rain, Tina and James could think of nothing but their daughter. Think of nothing but her and the family all those years ago that had been left to forever wonder about their little girl. They both felt a kinship to those people they had never met and they both felt the weight of the fear that they might wind up the same way. Might wind up never knowing where their daughter was or even if she was alive, might be doomed to look for her forever. They stood out listening to the rain fall for a long time before going back into their too empty house that had ceased to feel like the home they had known.
Jamison said goodnight to his new partner, his now entirely too quiet partner. He hoped her quietness didn’t mean a nasty call from the FBI offices in the morning saying his services were no longer required, that they were In Charge now. She didn’t seem pissed anymore though, just quiet. Who knew what women were thinking anyway. Maybe if he were better at reading women he wouldn’t be going home to an empty house. The thought almost sent him to the bar again but not quite. He said he was going home but actually headed back to the office.
“Goodnight Jamison,” Annie said quietly as she got in her car.
He realized that that was the first time she had called him by his name. The remote, thoughtful expression she wore took away any intimacy it would have carried though. He sighed as he sat behind the wheel. He was tired but with new information to research now he figured he would be at the office most of the night. Hopefully there would be more details on Marie Jenning’s disappearance in the archives. He stopped by the gas station on the way back. It was a Tesoro that offered food as well as fuel and stayed open all night. If you could call pretzels, hot dogs and popcorn food, that is. The bored looking kid behind the counter mumbled “hey man” at him as he walked in. It was probably good manners for him and due mostly to the cop car Jamison pulled up in. The kid had three earrings in each ear, including one that stretched his ear lobe out and left a hole in the middle. To each his own, Jamison figured. At least he wasn’t wearing makeup like some of the punks that hung around the parking lot at the high school did. Did makeup mean a guy was gay? Jamison figured he probably didn’t really want to know. People were different now than they used to be and that was just the way the wind blew. Angie Hoffer, whom he dated back in high school, suddenly proclaimed she was gay a few years back and now lived with two girlfriends. You just never knew.
He used the bathroom and washed his hands at the new sink. Their bathroom was nicer than his was. Splashing water on his face he saw himself in the mirror and thought again that he looked old, old and scruffy. There had been too many bar fights to break up and domestic violence calls to go to. Back when he started the job you got hardly any of those. The too many long nights at the bar showed on his face as well. Even the years since those long party nights didn’t erase them. He wondered for the thousandth time what Marcie looked like these days. She was probably just as pretty as the day he met her and hadn’t aged a bit. That started the wondering if she was remarried and he threw his paper towel away with a muttered curse and left the bathroom.
He bought a rubbery looking hot dog and a pretzel and got the biggest coffee they had. He dumped a whole bunch of sweet creamer in it for a change from his usual black and figured that counted as desert. The kid mumbled, “See ya dude,” as he pushed him his change. A car full of giggling high schoolers pulled up at the pumps as he stepped out into the rain. A couple of them looked pretty tipsy and he figured if he shook them down they probably had a bottle somewhere in the car. The driver looked pretty straight though so he had no desire to mess with them. He remembered a few episodes of the like when he was in high school. It didn’t seem that important anyway when compared to the investigation he was in. Two of the girls got out of the car and ran into the gas station, their laughter ringing out as they looked back over their shoulders at the two guys by the car. Dressed to the nines in their jean skirts and tops snug enough to show off what they had. They looked back to be sure the guys were watching them go, which of course they were. The familiar little dance made him smile.
“Hey Jamison,” the tallest guy by the car hollered at him.
His call was a little too loud and his baseball cap was a little too crooked, no doubt he had hit the bottle a couple of times himself. He grinned at Jamison, not the least bit guilty looking. He was a nice kid though, Tray his name was. Jamison went to school with his dad and had had a secret crush on his mom back before she got married. He used to go over for dinner at their house now and then back when he and Marcie were still together and they would all sit out on the deck and laugh at how stupid they had been back in high school. It surprised him to think how long it had been since he saw Angie or Bob.
“Hey Tray,” he called back. “Say ‘hi’ to your folks for me.”
Tray grinned like an idiot. “Sure thing man,” he hollered back.
The other kid next to him was looking a little nervous, hands shoved in his pockets. He was eyeballing Jamison and the cop car and probably wondering if he should dash into the station and flush his weed down the toilet. At their exchange he relaxed a little and thumped Tray on the back. Jamison saw it through the rain slicked dash as he got back in the car and saw the kid say something to Tray. A way to go for being friends with the fuzz, he guessed when he saw Tray laugh and shrug. It made him smile again. Oh, to be that age again with nothing to worry about but how much you could pull over on your parents and whether or not you could get to second base with the pretty girl riding next to you. It brought back all those days. He pulled away in the rain with his rubbery old food feeling a little younger all of a sudden and still smiling.
He wasn’t surprised when he saw Annie sitting in her little rented car when he pulled back into the parking lot at the station. He had taken her for a die-hard, too. She got out when he pulled up next to her. He stepped out into the softly falling rain and grinned at her, the good feeling still with him. A look of surprise flitted across her face but she smiled back, a real smile this time and one that lit up her face and made her even prettier.
“We had the same idea I guess” he said.
She nodded and held up a bag of takeout Chinese. From Sun Lees, one of the best Chinese places he had been to. You didn’t expect it in a small town but they were great. They had the best garlic shrimp in the state, probably in the U. S. He was surprised that she had even found the restaurant but then realized she probably did some research before she came. Of course she did, she was too organized not to have her ducks in a row. Probably had a map of the town in her bag or GPS or some such crap.
“You already have dinner though,” she said, nodding her head at his now soggy hot dog and pretzel he still carried.
“Dog food,” he said and he tossed the whole mess into the garbage can by the door.
“Oh, okay,” she said, wondering what had lightened his mood since they left the lake house and hoping he would stay that way for a while. She knew he was a good man, she could tell that much right off, but he did not seem l
ike a happy one and that could make him hard to work with. Whatever had lightened his mood, she’d take it.
“I thought you were going back to the hotel,” he said as he held the door open for her.
“I figured you would want to do some more research,” she said with a shrug. “Two heads are better than one.”
He nodded and called, “Hey Angie” to the girl behind the counter manning the switchboard.
She was a pretty girl, about twenty five, which made her a girl to Jamison. She had been manning the switchboard at night for about two months now.
She was about five months pregnant and she carried on as though she were about ten months along and carrying quintuplets. Constantly complaining her back hurt, her legs hurt, her feet hurt. How could her feet hurt anyway was beyond him because she was on her sitting twenty four seven. Susan loathed her and made it clear.
Angie waddled exaggeratedly over to look curiously at Annie.
“Miss Meyers, FBI,” he said in a curt introduction and went on past her.
Annie nodded to Angie and followed him into his office. Jamison got some satisfaction out of closing the door in Angie’s face, a fact that Annie didn’t miss and that made her smile inwardly.
“Nosy little busybody,” Jamison growled to himself under his breath. Annie heard him and turned away to hang her laptop case on the coat hook behind the door so he wouldn’t see her amusement. Jamison thought the only reason Angie had wanted the job in the first place was so she could hear all the goings on at night. It certainly wasn’t because she liked to work. If she wasn’t the mayor’s niece he would have sent her packing already. It would probably happen yet though, and he would hear plenty of crap no doubt. He was going to hear plenty anyway if he didn’t get this case solved fast. The town’s people were undoubtedly scared senseless and they might decide he should share in the blame on this. Thank God the FBI came in on this one. He honestly didn’t know that he could handle this one on his own. The murders were so far apart that it might be years before another girl went missing. But on the other hand, who said they were years apart? Who knew how many little girls he might have killed that had never been found. He could have been going farther away from them, maybe even out of state. Jamison’s cross referencing in the computer data base hadn’t turned up much yet but maybe he just wasn’t looking in the right place. The possibilities made his head hurt, and his heart hurt, too.
Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.
‘Christopher Morley’
Chapter Fourteen
Day 16
The rain gave up in the night and the sun rose in a clear, blue sky. Tina and James drank coffee in the kitchen with the sun spilling in through the windows and bathing the room in golden light. The new day seemed to bring with it new hope and optimism, the dark and the rain gone with the night before. They decided over their coffee to go into town. James wanted to check in at work. He didn’t actually say that he was going to go back to work but Tina kind of figured he was. It was an unspoken agreement that they were staying here now and Tina knew that she would never leave, never give up on the hope of finding her daughter. In spite of the experience that she had at James’ parents’ house, she knew that this was where it all was happening, this was where Hailey was and where Marie was able to reach her the best. The thought of the Jenning family still haunted both their thoughts. Could it be that they would never know? That they would be doomed to a half-life of wondering and searching? Tina did not know that Jeanette still lived her days in a mental institution, the computer article did not have details like that. But if she had she would have understood, how a thing like that could break your grip on reality. She could have understood Marie’s mother completely.
They rode together to town and Tina dropped him at his office. He worked for Peter’s Construction, a company that had been started by Jack Peters over fifty years before and was now about ten times the size that it had once been. They were responsible for almost all of the new constructions in a two hundred mile radius. James was responsible for most of the building plans and models, as well as the purchasing of all materials necessary for the construction. He was also responsible for the hiring of the plumbers, heating technicians, and whatever else was necessary depending on what they were building. It was he that would make sure that everything was up to code and would pass state inspection. Tina wondered as she kissed him goodbye and watched him walk in, what the company had been doing while he was gone.
Ames Peters had taken over when Jack retired and he had called after Hailey’s disappearance to tell them not to worry about work and to let them know if there was anything he could do, pretty nice boss, all in all. She was glad to see James head into work, he needed to get out of the house and away from all this. Even if it was just for work hours, it was a distraction. She went first to the grocery store. She knew they were running out of food, what was in the fridge was mostly bad anyway. She wandered the aisles for a little while, her heart not in it. Everything she saw made her think of Hailey. Finally she lost patience with herself and just threw a bunch of stuff at random in. She picked out a lot of Hailey’s favorites. The thought that maybe Hailey would be home to eat them comforted her enough to get her through shopping. She was aware of the looks she was getting, some sympathetic and some suspicious. Roberta and Jane pushed their cart by hers as far away as they could get, hugging the opposite side of the aisle as though she might be a carrier of the plague. They were both in their sixties or so and notorious gossips. Both were widowed and it was rumored that Roberta had helped her husband pass on with a nudge at the top of the stairs. Never proven of course, he had been a mean old bastard that pushed her around her whole life so no one probably would have cared anyway, except Jamison of course. Angie Smythe passed her in the isle and stopped to hug her wordlessly, a hard full bodied hug that brought tears to Tina’s eyes. She looked as trim and pretty as ever, one of those women that wore her years like a badge of honor instead of trying to bury them beneath an avalanche of makeup. Tina asked her how her son Tray was doing and was shocked to hear he was in high school now.
“Time flies,” Angie said with a little smile.
Tina nodded agreement and they parted ways. Angie looked like she wanted to say more but she finally just touched her arm and moved on down the aisle. Tina figured that she probably didn’t know what to say. What was there to say really anyway?
She loaded her groceries in the car and decided to walk around a bit. The sky was still clear and the sun shone brightly overhead. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket for the umpteenth time, making sure it was on and charged and no one had called. The thought that someone might have news and not reach her nagged her even when she saw the picture of the flower that was her back ground. No bar reading ‘one missed call’ or ‘one new message’. She put her hand in her pocket and held the phone as she walked. She walked up Line Drive and slowly became aware of the change in the town. The atmosphere was different. No children played in the little playground by the post office. The mothers she saw walking held their children tightly by the hand, as though someone might swoop in and grab them. She saw deputies patrolling twice, Smithers or whatever his name was and another cop that she didn’t even know. They drove slowly watching everyone, before they turned up side streets and disappeared. The relaxed and easy feel of the town was gone and fear was is its place. You could see it on every face in town, you could smell it in the air. Tina saw a news van drive past and turn up the street toward the police station. The news was out. She wondered if it was the FBI coming in that had alerted the media to what was going on or if someone had called them. Not that it mattered really. She remembered Jamison’s use of the words ‘serial killer’ and she shivered. It just didn’t seem possible. She had the strongest feeling of unreality, as though she were in a TV show or a movie. She wondered how the publicity might affect the situation. Would the killer become scared and hurt Hailey? It made her feel sick and scared and angry. Or would h
e get off on the attention, would he feel powerful and superior? Maybe it would keep her safe longer, prolong the game. She just didn’t know. Not knowing was like acid eating away at the walls of her mind. She just wanted to pick up Hailey from school like a normal day, take her home and cook dinner and watch a goofy movie. The three of them giggling on the couch and all right in the world. Please God, she thought, I will lock up like Fort Knox every night if you bring her home. I’ll never take it for granted again, never take my eyes off her again. Her phone rang, jerking in her hand like a trout flopping in its death spasm, its last protest at being taken from the water it needed. She was surprised to see how far she walked. She was clear down to where Line Drive turned into Marigold street, almost to where the businesses turned abruptly into neat rows of houses painted yellow and blue and green.
‘Patterson Police Dept.,’ her phone read.
Her heart flopped once and then began to pound.
Her hands were shaking as she answered it but her voice sounded oddly calm in her own ears.
It was Jamison’s voice and he hastened to tell her there was no news. Her shoulders slumped and she was hit with a wave of disappointment and relief, mixed together in an unnerving and somewhat nauseating mix.
Down in the Lake Page 9